TrainDL workshop integrated in a course at the Freie Universität Berlin

In November 2022, computer science students at the Freie Universität Berlin (FU) had the chance to take part in a TrainDL training workshop. The TrainDL team from FU integrated the training session on data and AI literacy in the course “Introduction to the Computer Science Education” (Original: “Einführung in die Didaktik der Informatik”). The course is offered for student teachers in the Bachelor as well as in the Q-Master program as a basic seminar for the introduction to the didactics of computer science.

Course times are regularly used for synchronous learning activities. Typically, in Wednesday's lecture, students receive input on a topic in lecture format, and on Tuesday, students actively apply what they have learned. The TrainDL team followed this format when conducting the sessions. Consequently, the training session lasted 3 hours (2 sessions á 1.5 h). On both days, 25 computer science students participated. On Wednesday, November 2, we introduced students to the topics of data and AI Literacy as a topic in German school curricula and the data lifecycle. On Thursday, November 3, the students worked practically in Orange3 on the data and AI literacy case studies.

Active participation in the training session allowed the students to acquire a set of competencies. To name a few, they learned to identify AI technologies on the basis of four indicators (perceiving, reasoning, learning, interacting), indicate their areas of application and describe potential societal impacts. Moreover, they can take a position towards the application and explain their stance, as well as analyze data using the Orange3 data mining platform.